Mixed Media Collage

Oakville, Ontario

I am a late bloomer. Creativity, art, and culture have always been in my blood—they’ve even fuelled my professional life, but never with myself at the forefront. Pandemic life gave me the gift of slowing down, of asking what truly matters for personal fulfilment, and of pushing the boundaries of what I thought was important as a mother, wife, and professional. The last five years have been filled with learning, new choices, and community—a journey that’s led me to what I’ve always wanted, no, needed to be: an artist.

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My work explores the push and pull between what we show and what we keep to ourselves. Through collage, layering, and mixed media, I use paper, found objects, and botanicals to create textured pieces that invite a closer look. I’m drawn to the simplicity of colour, texture, and line, yet within that simplicity there’s emotional depth. I love how paper can be marked, torn, and then reassembled into something entirely renewed and alive. Each layer tells part of a story—revealing some things, concealing others—much like the quiet, complex stories we all carry.

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A portion of this exhibit was inspired by my upbringing in the Church of the Holy Saviour in Waterloo, Ontario, during the 1970s and 1980s. The series Remnant Vestments uses old threads and fabric pieces I imagine my mother once used to stitch, embroider, and appliqué beautiful clergy vestments. The series Luminous Colours nods to the stained-glass windows that flanked the congregation—the bold black lines recall the lead partitions, while the intense colours and starbursts suggest light pressing through the glass. And of course, no memory of a church-going child would be complete without the altar guild ladies, always in the kitchen or arranging flowers, reflected in the series Blooms and Vessels.

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These are my memories—layered with nostalgia, embellished with a little intentional forgetting, and reassembled into something that reveals a few tucked-away pieces of my own history.

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Recent Exhibitions/Markets:

• Kash Art on the Water, Minden, Ontario - August 2023

• Uxbridge Art on the Fringe - September 2024

• Dundas Artisan Market - September 2023

• Art Walk, Elizabeth Gardens Collective, Burlington - August 2024

• Uxbridge Art on the Fringe - September 2024

• Dundas Artisan Market - September 2024

• ArtHeads Collective, Group Show, Sovereign House, Bronte Historical Society, Oakville - July 2025

• Art Walk, Elizabeth Gardens Collective, Burlington - August 2025